The present invention relates generally to commercial food chilling equipment and, more particularly, to chillers having features for facilitating set-up and operation of a chilling operation and improved tracking of chilled food products.
Commercial food product chillers, commonly referred to as blast chillers, are typically used to chill hot food products to a safe temperature for storage. For example, a hoot food product at 145xc2x0 F. to 160xc2x0 F. or more may be taken just out of the oven, placed in the chiller, and rapidly cooled to a low temperature of 40xc2x0 F. or less. Such rapid chilling of the food product is desirable for a variety of reasons, including food safety.
Known food product chillers generally operate in one of two modes, namely a chill by temperature mode or a chill by time mode. In the chill by temperature mode a temperature probe is placed in the food product and the desired chilled temperature of the food product can be entered into the machine by a user. The chilling operation then runs until the temperature probe indicates that the food product has reached the desired chilled temperature. In the chill by time mode, a user simply enters a time period for chilling the food product and the chilling operation then runs for the entered time period. In either type of chilling operation a user may also set the type of chill (hard or soft), and/or a desired air temperature within the chilling compartment. Some chillers are also configured to operate in a freeze mode for freezing food products. As used herein the term xe2x80x9cchillerxe2x80x9d broadly encompasses both units which include a freeze mode and units which do not include a freeze mode.
Known food product chillers are limited in that once set, the food product chiller can only run on the current settings unless a user enters any new settings which may be required for a different food product. In some environments this requires the user to know the proper settings for a large number of food products. While such a requirement may not present a problem for experienced personnel, as users become less experienced and less skilled, difficulties can arise. Further, with less skilled users, and even with skilled users, there is always the possibility that settings may be entered incorrectly.
Appropriate tracking of chilled food products in commercial settings can also be difficult. In many cases it is desirable to know that a given food product has been chilled properly. Known chillers have included a printer for printing a paper ticket for the chilling operation, and users have attempted to tape such tickets to chilled food product containers, but the tickets often fall off of the containers.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a chiller configured to facilitate operation by unskilled users, and it would be desirable to provide a chiller which facilitates tracking of chilled food products.
In one aspect of the present invention, a chiller includes a chilling compartment for receiving food products to be chilled and a chilling system for delivering chilled air to the chilling compartment during chilling operations. A controller effects operation of the chilling system and includes associated memory storing a plurality of food product data entries. Each food product data entry includes a food product name and at least one associated chilling operation setting for the food product. A user input device is associated with the controller. The controller is operable in conjunction with the user input device to permit a user to select a particular food product data entry such that the controller retrieves at least one chilling operation setting of the particular food product data entry for use in a subsequent chilling operation.
In another aspect of the invention, in a chiller including a controller and associated display device and user input device, a method of setting up a chilling operation for a given food product involves displaying multiple food product identifiers via the display device; selecting, via the user input device, the given food product based upon display of its identifier; and retrieving from memory, via the controller, at least one chilling operation setting for the given food product for use in a subsequent chilling operation of the food product.
Still another aspect of the invention provides a method for tracking compliance of a given food product with established requirements associated with chilling the given food product. The method involves providing a chiller including a controller and a printing mechanism having an associated supply of adhesive labels; monitoring a plurality chilling parameters of a chilling operation of the given food product; and printing a chilling operation summary label which can be applied to the food product, the chilling operation summary label including multiple chilling parameters which were monitored.